


we're half awake in a fake empire.

by redhoods



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Insomnia, M/M, Pre-Series, That's it, tired boys kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 18:22:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10792167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redhoods/pseuds/redhoods
Summary: In front of him, Ronan deflates, curving forwards until his forehead touches Gansey’s, his back a sharp curve under his tank that Gansey has a sudden desperate urge to trace with his hands and lips. He bottles the urge, focuses on the rise and fall of Ronan’s chest, the way his lower lip looks when he sinks his teeth into it. It makes him wonder what Ronan’s thinking or if he’s actually holding something back for once.





	we're half awake in a fake empire.

**Author's Note:**

> based on [this beautiful work](http://f0x-meets-w0lf.tumblr.com/post/159658656479/prompt-ronan-and-gansey-and-their-terrible) by [f0x-meets-w0lf](http://f0x-meets-w0lf.tumblr.com/).
> 
> title from fake empire by the national.
> 
> this is unbeta'd as per usual.

It’s somewhere past two am and the almost full moon is casting eerie shadows through the factory windows. Gansey sighs, tossing his glasses onto the desk as he sits back, one hand pinching the bridge of his nose, the other rubbing his temple. He’s tired, shoulders slumped out of their usually tightly held posture. It takes several long moments for him to realize he’s even being watched and he swivels the chair to face Ronan.

Standing in the doorway of his room, Ronan looks ethereal, backlit by the moon shining through his bedroom windows. It creates a blue aura around him, but doesn’t do anything to soften his features. If anything, they’re cast in a sharper, harsher relief.

“Nightmare?” He asks, hesitant to shatter the delicate silence that’s settled over Monmouth.

Ronan hums his assent.

When he leverages himself to stand, the chair makes a soft groan of protest as his weight shifts, but neither of them pay it any mind. Gansey’s quiet as he crosses the room, stopping a couple of feet shy of Ronan, “Want to talk about it?”

One eyebrow arches high and Ronan snorts, “Fuck no.”

Rolling his eyes, Gansey reaches out and wraps a hand around Ronan’s bicep, dragging him in. There’s a token protest, but Ronan doesn’t actually resist, sways forward with the movement, lifting a hand to cup Gansey’s jaw, “Do _you_ want to talk about it?” He asks sharply, voice quiet but still like a gunshot echoing through the emptiness of the warehouse, like he’s also afraid of interrupting the solemn nature of the night.

Gansey only shakes his head, bringing his other hand up to curl around Ronan’s other arm. 

In front of him, Ronan deflates, curving forwards until his forehead touches Gansey’s, his back a sharp curve under his tank that Gansey has a sudden desperate urge to trace with his hands and lips. He bottles the urge, focuses on the rise and fall of Ronan’s chest, the way his lower lip looks when he sinks his teeth into it. It makes him wonder what Ronan’s thinking or if he’s actually holding something back for once.

He doesn’t want to ask, knows he’ll get honesty and isn’t sure he’s in the right mind frame for that.

An indeterminable amount of time passes of them just sharing the same air before Ronan licks his lips. Gansey expects him to pull away, but instead he presses in closer, sealing their lips together in a kiss. It’s just a soft, dry press of lips but Gansey’s heart pounds wildly regardless.

Ronan’s thumb strokes his jaw and then he pulls back, cheeks tinging pink in a way that Gansey doesn’t know what to do with.

He licks his lips and Ronan makes a wounded sound before he’s pressing back in. It’s unsurprising to him that Ronan kisses like he fights, with every part of him, and he has to curl his fingers into the fabric of Ronan’s tank that’s stretched taut across his back.

(They’d kissed once before.

Ronan had been nursing a hangover, some days after Niall Lynch’s funeral, brimming with anger and grief. His once envied curls covering the sink and floor in the bathroom.

At a loss for words, Gansey had stood back, watched the trembling line of Ronan’s shoulders as he gripped the edges of the sink, white knuckled as he stared down his own reflection. Seconds had dragged on before he could no longer stand by and he’d stayed quiet as he’d entered the bathroom, fingers curling over Ronan’s shoulders, dragging him from the mirror.

There was no fight. Ronan came willing, face tucking into Gansey’s neck, shoulders shaking as Gansey rubbed a hand over the line of his back in a slow drag.

It could’ve been hours that they stood there before Ronan had pulled back, stared at him with narrow eyes for a blink of a second, making up his mind just that fast. The kiss had been a hard press of lips and Gansey had let Ronan take the lead, take what he needed, tongues and teeth and a brief flash of pain.

Ronan had pulled back, stared at the swollen redness of his lips before he’d disappeared out the door.

It was several days before Ronan came back, reappearing with a raw back full of black ink and a ferociousness that still took Gansey by surprise in the present.)

Ronan breaks the kiss, “If I’m boring you, I can stop,” he says, but it comes out more petulant than angry.

Sliding his hands lower, Gansey grips the bottom hem of the black fabric and drags it up, “I wish you wouldn’t,” he says, when the tank is blocking his view of Ronan’s face. It flutters to the ground at their feet and Ronan kisses him again.

The kiss is slower, easier, a slick slide of their mouths that both settles Gansey and sets fires burning on his insides.

Ronan doesn’t pull away so much as drag his lips sideways until he’s panting hotly against Gansey’s neck.

His own eyes close as he tucks his face against Ronan’s shoulder and Gansey traces fingers up and then back down Ronan’s back, following the vague lines he knows Ronan’s tattoo makes, until Ronan shudders against him, and he presses them flat against Ronan’s back.

“Better?” Gansey asks several long moments later.

Ronan hums his assent once more, but makes no move to pull away.

**Author's Note:**

> [come yell at me on tumblr.](http://redhoods.tumblr.com)


End file.
